Conversations about death are rarely pleasant, but if you want to be an organ donor then it is a necessary conversation to have with family, rather than leave them with such an important and difficult decision during their time of grief and loss. Dozens of people representing 15 donors from across central Pennsylvania attended the Organ Donor Remembrance Ceremony.

On January 1, Penn State Hershey Medical Center sponsored a rose on the “Rose Parade Donate Life America” float for each organ donor who gave the gift of life at the hospital between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013. At a ceremony on March 9 on the Medical Center campus, individuals representing those donors received a live rose symbolizing their loved one’s gift.

At 1 p.m. Sunday, March 9, Penn State Hershey faculty and staff involved in the care of organ and tissue donors are encouraged to join families of each donor for the Rose Parade Donor Remembrance Ceremony, held in the University Conference Center.

One person can save the lives of up to eight others and improve the lives of many more through organ, eye and tissue donation. With that in mind, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center is proud to support the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) Workplace Partnership for Life Hospital Campaign.

Eighteen people die each day because of a lack of healthy organs available for donation. Many people who would otherwise be willing to donate choose not to due to a variety of myths about becoming an organ donor.

Every 10 minutes someone is added to the list of those needing an organ transplant. Every day, 18 people die for want of an organ. Currently about 115,000 people are awaiting an organ; 45 percent are white, 29 percent black, 18 percent Hispanic and 7 percent Asian. This racial differential is important because a transplanted organ must be a close genetic match with the recipient. In 2010, 67 percent of donors were white, 16 percent black, 13 percent Hispanic and 2.3 percent Asian. If you are a person of color in need of an organ, your prospects of a match are considerably less than for whites. This is a problem people of color can solve -- by signing up to be organ donors.

How often does the average person get to save a life? Not in the dramatic way you see it on television. The average person will not get to save someone by running a cardiac resuscitation. But even though it's not as exciting, the average person can save a life just as surely as the TV doctors do. Among the ways anyone can save a life, says this week's edition of The Medical Minute, a service of the Penn State Hershey Medical Center, are organ, blood, marrow and umbilical cord blood donations.

What happens if your daughter or son suddenly goes into nonreversible liver failure, and only a liver transplant can save them? What if you suddenly lose your kidney function and only realize it when you are told that you may need dialysis and transplantation?